This Syrian intervention is much more about Iran than Syria. The Syrian civil war has given Iran a great strategic opportunity. Within all that aid, the Iranians have positioned in forward Syrian areas state of the art short range missile batteries pointed at Israel manned by their own Revolutionary Guards. These missiles cannot be stopped by Iron Dome and has put Israel in “check”. Eventually Israel realizes that it will have to attack Iran’s nuclear program which proceeds daily. However grave harm will come to Israel if those missiles are in place when the attack comes. Their location must be pinpointed. The US and Israeli missile launch on Monday was a test to gauge Russian detection capabilities. How much notice will the commanders of those batteries get that an attack is coming? It was probably the inability to pinpoint the exact location of those batteries that delayed the “limited strike”. Obviously there is no such thing as a limited strike. The attack can easily involve the US in a prolonged bloody conflict. That conflict would include no doubt an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. ( Netanyahu would be foolish to let this crisis go to waste. However attacking Iran will not be a cakewalk. They have fortified the Persian Gulf with state of the art Chinese supplied shore to ship missiles. American ships operating in the narrow Persian Gulf will be sunk. This “limited strike” will be neither limited or quick. Many young brave Americans will die.
Apparently as well, there’s a new gas pipeline mixed into this. The Saudis and Qataris are trying to push a new pipeline through Syria to feed Europe, which would bite heavily into Russia’s Gazprom business. Since Assad’s Syria is a Russian “friend”, they’ve resisted. Kicking Assad out would improve the chances of the new Qatari pipeline.